With the Israelis things are not only turned upside down but outright falsification is a normal modus operandi.
Witness what the Israeli ambassador in DC had to say :
" The mob that assaulted Israeli special forces on the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on Monday was not motivated by peace. "
(The NY TIMES;An Assault, Cloaked in Peace By MICHAEL B. OREN, Published: June 2, 2010)
So it is the mob that has assaulted the troops and not the troops which is meant to say and convey the impression that: it was the "mobs" who boarded an Israeli ship and attacked its passengers who happened to be paratroopers from Israel's regular army!
Such a public declaration which runs contrary to worldwide known, witnessed and established facts, shamelessly made by an ambassador, no less, calls for a careful scrutiny of the mental and psychological makeup its source and the motives behind it !
The man is sane enough so no more on the mental.
The psychology, though, is another thing: it is Zionist based and Jewish inspired which means that:
a- “the chosen people” enjoys a special dispensation to do whatever is necessary to attain its objectives
b-once that necessity is met the resulting act itself is necessarily and by definition, being Zionist inspired and Zionist serving, a good and blameless thing to the uninitiated then :actually praise worthy to the committed,
c-since, as is often the case, the facts of the matter surrounding the act run against public general perception the sequence of events and /or their intrinsic actuality could /should be rearranged or reversed to make the act more palatable then make it laudable.
SO should that lead to outright falsification; so be it; runs Zionist ideology!
What we have here in the Israeli ambassador’s own words above is not a mere reinterpretation of facts but an actual case of outright falsification.
For the motives behind such upside down overturning of facts that, in an ever smaller and more knowledgeable world, is often leading to outright fabrication and blatant falsification: the motive is no longer to deceive!
It is to force on the public a certain perception of events in which the” perception” of the facts trumps the authenticity /the actuality of these same “facts”
That is FACTS, per se, are not important it is their perception that is
And should the need arise FACTS can be turned upside down, neglected, distorted, reversed, or simply made up to serve the “chosen people” according to his political /spiritual alma matter: Zionism

"The siege is a gift,” says a Hamas minister."
Yes,is possible to isolate a few in the barbaric life conditions imposed by a terrorist state Israel after Hamas was legally elected to force population to rise against5 Hamas and to hint that in Gaza is not to bad,as a few Jews got rich in ghetto Warsaw.But i'm sure that misery in which are put the people in Gaza to live ,when their tormentor,Israel,helped by "free world"with money,economic and politic support live in abundance,this misery exceed what Jews experienced in ghetto Warsaw where people outside the ghetto had poor life.To torture 1.5 million people in the name of your security is a primitive policy and sadism.Security is getting when the other people is satisfied with they life.Shame on Israel.BTW.Israel "vibrant democracy"appears ,of course,an empty slogan,because the siege was intiated by the olmert,from the left of the politic map ,and is continued by the fascist lieberman ,who lives in occupied territories ,and the demagogue Netaniahu.

When dozens of innocent civilians are butchered almost every week in Afghanistan,India,or Pakistan the world does not care.But when nine Turkish political activists ,who volunteered for a dangerous mission,are killed the world shakes itself out of its deep slumbers and sheds copious tears.

There are two comments on this.
First is that Israel deliberately killed unarmed civilians carrying humanitarian aid in international waters. This is grave breaching of international law - namely Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Israel is State member of UN), article 3 ("Everyone has right to life, liberty and security of person"), article 5 (No on shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment"), article 9 ("No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile"), article 13 (1.Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the border of each State")... and so on and so on. This is a criminal act and Israeli officials are to be hold accounted for 9 dead and more than 30 injured people. International community is remaining silent even after Israel refused non-arbitrary international investigation. Israel is acting like a spoiled child. Their lies about live fire on soldiers dropping from helicopter on-board are so weak. How many Israeli soldiers are wounded by fire arms? How many dead? Why did they storm boats anyway? They want to keep Gaza citizens in Ghetto in 21. century forgetting what happened Jewish people in Warsaw in WW II and they are behaving same like Somali pirates.
Second question is peace on Meddle East and Israeli constant refusal to accept it. If they really want peace they would stay in borders from 1948 and prevent any settlements on occupied land. That will be clear sign they want two states solution. But, they did everything to prevent this solution by dividing Palestinian territories into 2 separated entities, divided by illegal and shameful wall in addition. This is in the shortest whole true.

DIFFERENTLY FROM THE YES SIR ACOLYTES, BRAZIL AND TURKEY TRIED TO HELP THE USA FROM A AMBIGUOUS COURSE IN ITS MIDDLE EAST POLICIES. AS ANY FRIEND OF AMERICA CAN SEE, THE AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IS IN COMPLETE MESS, WITH AMERICAN ACTIONS TOTALLY AGAINST THE IDEALS OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS. THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BECAME A TOOL FOR SPURIOUS, BOGUS INTERESTS AND A MOCKERY FOR WHAT AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL SHOULD STAND FOR. THE CHANGE OF GOVERMENT DID NOT CHANGE THE HAZARDOUS COURSE AS CAN BE SEEN BY ANYONE WHO WANTS TO SEE THE STEALTH CONTROL OF WASHIGTON BY HIDDEN FORCES. PERHAPS LETS ALL BE NAIVE AND BELIEVE THAT UFO´S TOOK THE CONTROL OF UNCLE SAM. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL MACHINERY SYSTEM HAS FLAWS THAT ALLOW CONSPIRACIES TO COMMAND IT. SAM GIANCANA DID THAT, AT THE ELECTION OF PRES. KENNEDY. AS THE BARD SAID: THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE KINGDOM...VERY SAD TO WITNESS THE AMERICAN DREAM DEBASED INTO SUCH EFFONTERY. ARMANDO VASONE

C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute. Suppose the Israelis' version is correct, as for all I know it may be, then they fell straight into a trap, which makes them even stupider, and therefore more contemptible, than the peaceniks' version does.

Just boycott all products from Israel. Official apartheid politics in South Africa ended partly because of the global boycott. If the governments still sell weapons to Israel and let it run wild, we have to start action. I have never bought any products from Israel and I hope you avoid it as well. Money talks.

James1234, you don't get it: the whole point of the flotilla was to deny Israel the prerogative to control the Gazans' lives, as it has got so used to in all these decades of occupation, to open a delivery channel free of Israeli hindrance. You can see Israel's arrogance in randomly picking and choosing what the Gazans can eat, or what is considered "superfluous". The whole blockade is about, as senior Israeli government advisor Dov Weisglass notoriously explained in 2006 "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger," to make them suffer and despair until they decide to revolt against Hamas, and beg Israel's Fatah puppets to come back. For this reason, the blockade is morally unacceptable, and has to be broken, to free Gazans from this inhumane and humiliating situation. Delivering the goods through Israel would have been pointless (and most of them would have been in the "nope" list anyway). A direct line had to be open.

Now we can see that the flotilla has succeeded: Egypt has indefinitely opened the Rafah crossing, and Netanyahu just bowed to US pressure to open the naval blockade. Those who risked their lives in front of the trigger-happy Tzahal boys must be proud.

*It's a terrible thing that happened at sea, and ultimately The Leader of Hamas was right when he said "we're going to win if the boats get here, and even if they don't" but those we're no "humanitarian" people on board - they behaved like non-peaceful rabble: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU12KW-XyZE

*From what I recall, the organizer of the flotilla said that if (or when) Israeli troops boarded the boats then they would only resist in passive fashion (for example blocking doors) but would not act in violence... well - that was an outrageous piece of nonsense wasn't it.

*The flotilla was offered a number of times to give all its aid to the Israelis or the Egyptians and that we would pass it on to Gaza - they refused.

*The Israeli troops boarded the ships with paint-ball guns, and were met by a lynch mob, and its only then when they saw their lives were at risk (and again see video) that they switched to their pistols.

*The so called aid flotilla came looking to provoke and came looking for violence - and they got it. Sadly people died and now its going to cost Israel, but be under no illusions - that so called aid flotilla wasn't about aid to the people of Gaza (else they would have accepted Israel's offer), it was about provoking Israel and putting Israel in the corner and Sadly - they have succeeded, but if they think for one minute that it will make the Israeli's now turn around and say - "oh we're sorry, lets end the blockade on Gaza" then they are mistaken, and FYI - the blockade on Gaza is justified!

*Release Gilad Shalit, Stop launching rockets at Israel, and accept the right of Israel to exist (hamas want Israel to be erased of the map) - then we can talk.

Hamas tightening its grip.Is this new, or some brilliant journalist woke up, only after Israel warned the do-gooders not to try and break the blockade.

The bleeding hearts thought that because pro Palestine sentiment was on their side, they would show the world how successful they were. As far as a media and propaganda extravaganza goes, they were successful. But Israel never had true friends and she meant what she said, DO NOT TRY TO RUN THE BLOCKADE!
As recently as the hurricane disaster in Haiti, the US.set up a blockade to prevent a mass exodus of fleeing Haitians. Did you notice the do-gooders trying to run this blockade? The videos were blinding, right? And how about the Turkey and Azerbaijan blockade against the Armenians, remember that?And Turkey, "the most freedom loving country" in the mid-east demanding justice be served.
The stupidity of the bleeding hearts is beyond belief, they got what they deserved.

The Economist and most comments given so far miss an important point. The attempt to break the blockade was a deliberate attempt to create martyrs and an International scene. The organizers of the ships knew that their ships would be intercepted and that there would be an uneven fight. They knew that the media would take a biased perspective against Israel.

In this, the organizers achieved their goal.

If they really felt that bringing aid to Gaza was important, then they could have allowed Israel or Egypt to inspect the cargo first. But they deliberately choose not to do this.

Israel does allow inspected aid in – the Economist has missed this important point. The whole scene was really unnecessary.

The recognition that the militant Israeli right and Hamas have a common interest in prolonging war and the misery in Gaza is important. So the Israeli people need to see how they are being used - do they not wonder WHY everyone thinks they are wrong? Do they not wonder whether there might not be something in it?

I think that the clearest sign that Israel is delusional, is the reference to Israel as a "strategic asset" to the USA. The USA has been the principal supporter of Israel since 1967, when Israel launched another illegal military operation. American support for Israeli aggression has been been a major factor in encouraging maverick behaviour by Israel. This has been the primary reason for the lack of progress with peace talks. American support effectively emboldens and radicalised Israel, which in turn inflames and radicalises its opponents. Meanwhile the Moslem world is incensed by Israeli actions, and attacks Israel and its US ally. The West is caught up in this by association. Ultimately the "War on Terror" was caused by unthinking and blind US support for Israel. Isreal is no asset to the USA - it is its biggest threat.

If you were on a ship and someone stole your gun and someone else is running at you with a metal bar - what are you going to do?

So to someone without an extreme bias, if you were a military commander told to enforce the blockade, how would you suggest Israel handle the next flotilla? If you were to agree with this article and end the blockade, how would you handle Hamas, especially with the PA's own authority in mind?

= = = Seems to me that this article has a more balanced and above all an analytical view than any of the other Western media that I have read. I found neither bias nor hate nor taking a side but felt it was trying to come to today’s truths as close as possible. Did I miss something?

Israel palpably massacred people and again... Israel just don't want to take responsibility of the plight. But, people with conscious knows that how Israel did very bad, very very bad. This is just inhuman...

What a bizarre and rather utopian account of the current economic situation in Gaza; rather diametically opposed to the account given in the london times which depicted malnourishment and water pollution. Hmm, who is right?